he man took out a pipe and
piped, and instantly all the rats in town, in an army which blackened
the face of the earth, came forth from their haunts, and followed the
piper until he piped them to the river Weser, where they alls jumped
in and were drowned. But as soon as the torment was gone, the townsfolk
refused to pay the piper on the ground that he was evidently a wizard.
He went away, vowing vengeance, and on St. John's day reappeared, and
putting his pipe to his mouth blew a different air. Whereat all the
little, plump, rosy-cheeked, golden-haired children came merrily running
after him, their parents standing aghast, not knowing what to do,
while he led them up a hill in the neighbourhood. A door opened in the
mountain-side, through which he led them in, and they never were seen
again; save one lame boy, who hobbled not fast enough to get in before
the door shut, and who lamented for the rest of his life that he had not
been able to share the rare luck of his comrades. In the street through
which this procession passed no music was ever afterwards allowed to be
played. For a long time the town dated its public documents from this
fearful calamity, and many authorities have treated it as an historical
event. [17] Similar stories are told of other towns in Germany, and,
strange to say, in remote Abyssinia also. Wesleyan peasants in England
believe that angels pipe to children who are about to die; and in
Scandinavia, youths are said to have been enticed away by the songs of
elf-maidens. In Greece, the sirens by their magic lay allured voyagers
to destruction; and Orpheus caused the trees and dumb beasts to follow
him. Here we reach the explanation. For Orpheus is the wind sighing
through untold acres of pine forest. "The piper is no other than the
wind, and the ancients held that in the wind were the souls of the
dead." To this day the English peasantry believe that they hear the wail
of the spirits of unbaptized children, as the gale sweeps past their
cottage doors. The Greek Hermes resulted from the fusion of two deities.
He is the sun and also the wind; and in the latter capacity he bears
away the souls of the dead. So the Norse Odin, who like Hermes fillfils
a double function, is supposed to rush at night over the tree-tops,
"accompanied by the scudding train of brave men's spirits." And readers
of recent French literature cannot fail to remember Erokmann-Chatrian's
terrible story of the wild huntsman Vittikab, a